Sunday, March 25, 2007

How Miliband Can Make His Intentions clear

More and more people believe David Miliband is becoming more and more interested in the idea of challenging Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership. His public protests that he supports Gordon Brown are starting to wear a little thin. Today's Observer front page asserts that Blair wants Miliband to run.

Whenever he's asked the question he fakes frustration and says he has made his position quite clear. The fact is that his position is as clear as the picture on the BBC's downloadable Watch Again programmes.

This is the question I would put to Miliband were I ever given the chance...

"General Sherman once said: 'If drafted I will not run. If nominated I will not accept. If elected I will not serve'. Lyndon Johnson said something similar: 'I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my Party...' Do these quotes sum up your position vis a vis the Labour Party leadership?"

It really is a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Any equivocation and we can take it as read that he really does want to run. In my opinion it would actually be a good thing if he did... A good thing for Labour or the Conservatives? I'll let you make up your own mind which I mean!

48 comments:

Puttman laying into Bliar on Radio 4 "politics at a point thats almost terminal"

Nailed Mandelson and Campbell for spin.....

Some change from his ranting about Ruth Turner. Maybe he was forced to look behind the spin after his daft comments and now he gets it. He was extremely angry about it all.His comments were bang on, its only his support for Brown that confirms him as still delusional.

Curiously, the Observer story is written by Ned Temko (best known for covering the Tories) and not the political editor Gaby Hinsliff. Could it be that wasn't that convinced about the veracity of the story which has been totally denied on the record by Number Ten, Jack Straw, David Miliband and Ned Temko's dog. Bizarrely, the Tory-supporting Mail on Sunday, ran a similar Miliband to run story...is any sort of pattern emerging? Miliband won't run - he's not that stupid. Any suggestion he will is just utter rubbish made up by desperate hacks casting around for equally desperate Blairites to stand up their nonsense.

Iain, I have spent 10 years watching Labour prove beyond doubt, 'If you want to lose money give it to a Government'and enough is enough.It needs to be spent in an efficient way and Labour don,t know how!!

Lets just put up with Gordon Brown for a few years and forget Millibabble

I take your point, Iain. As an avid follower of all things political I'd like to see a decent fight for the Labour leadership - but my love of politics gets completely overriden by my desire to see Cameron in 10 Downing Street, so Milliband had better not screw things up for us.

To most people, Brown stands for taxes, taxes and more taxes. He wouldn't be able to shed that image as PM, and wouldn't be able to blame everything that's gone wrong since 1997 on Blair alone. It would clearly be advantageous for Cameron to face Brown in the next election.

But Blair and Brown have dominated Labour for more than a decade and won three elections. Dumping Brown now means admitting that this era is over, and taking a leap into the unknown. The question is whether the Labour Party is really ready to do that, and I suspect that they won't be unless Brown's poll numbers become so low that a large number of MPs think that they are going to lose their seats.

One person alone from the next Labour generation cannot take on Brown. But if a whole set of people from the next generation take him on then this tired, tarnished, nose-picking sick fraud with his Straw man campaign manager as much damaged goods as he is, can be taken down. Together with his own generation's repellent, sycophantic sidekicks who have sacrificed political probity and morality to the greater goal of achieving Gordon Brown's political ambition, and risked the survival of the Labour party for their careers,.

And a general election can give us all the chance to say which party manifesto we prefer, with a decent team championing either side.

What evidence is there from say, the past week, that the Tories should be scared witless of anyone in the Labour Party, least of all Brown? It has been a dreadful week for Labour - Stalin, budget, bogies, back-stabbing briefings and all - though, I suspect, far worse in the privacy of darkened rooms than has yet been exposed to public attention.

How are canvass returns looking in the West Midlands, Bob? Budget playing well?

The Tories preferred opponent at the next election is Brown because they know the Bogeyman is eminently beatable by a clear majority.

That's why increasing numbers of Labour MP's including Cabinet Ministers and Blair himself, are casting around for a credible opponent who can beat Brown in the leadership contest and give them a better chance against Cameron.

It's not the Tories who are hyping up Miliband, it's coming from within Labour from people who now realise that Brown will lead them into years of political oblivion.

Even more than Cameron, Miliband is another Blair-clone. Only he appears to lacks the warmth and easy-going manner Cameron has with the public, and comes across as robotic. I doubt the general public will warm to him.

A group of Old Labourites were discussing nulab's electoral chances at a recent, local memorial service. One, a retired MP and grandee of the local party who detests nulab, yet, as a life long socialist, could never bring himself to withdraw support for a Labour government, face etched with pain, told the others that he fears that Labour are finished and that Cameron will win the next election. There were nods of acceptance from his, equally pained, fellow left wingers.

Another of the group said he despaired for the Labour party as the only supporters left were old b.ggers like them, almost all the young supporters had deserted the party.

I've never known that old Labour grandee to be negative about his party. He was always the one who, no matter how dreadful the sleaze and the press Labour had, would say that as a life Long Socialist he'd lost battles and suffered disappointment all his life but had never given up hope or allegiance to his party.

So the extent of the negativity he expressed this time was surprising. Though what was even more surprising were the suppressed twitches of smiles of self satisfaction that the whole group had.

Get real Bob, Gordon Brown is detested , probably the most disliked politician in the country. You can kid yourself, as you have NO choice in the matter, that he'd be a successful leader but to any relatively disinterested and objective observer it's obvious that he's totally unelectable. Don't say we didn't tell you so! Time to stop deluding yourself if you genuinely care for the future of your party.

Miliband would be mad to stand aainst Gordon Brown. It would ignite civil war and he would go down with his party at the next general election

Far better to let Gordon lose the next election and get himself leader of the party then, by when the tories will be in power and will get the blame when Gordon Browns housing bubble debt economy collapses putting Miliband in a good position to win the election after that.

Bob Piper, you seem to spend more time here than on your own blog, please don’t take that as a criticism, having visited your blog I quite understand why it is that you would seek some company, my point is that on which ever site you chose to temporarily squat, you have nothing positive to say about your own party, chancellor or present leader. As for that deluded dross of an offering above, may I suggest that your constant attack of the Tory leader, every poll for the past 6 months and Gordon’s present predicament is evidence of you being scared witless.

why would a young politician like miliband sacrifice his political career by taking on brown now.all he has to do is bide his time,wait until brown loses the next election,then he can ride to the rescue of new labour.7-8 years isn't long to wait for youngster like him and it will allow him to demonstrate his leadership credentials more convincingly than he has up to now.

It's odd that the reputedly shy Gordon Brown twice on budget day - and so very transparently - sabotaged his own bid for Prime Minister.

First, with his Blairesque lies and deceit about tax cuts, for which Brown knew he would very soon be exposed. Is this why Brown deftly scuttled out of the chamber before Osborne - who's cleverness and sharpness terrifies Brown - could speak on the budget?

Second, by humiliating himself with his unbelievably childish and gross behaviour on the front bench.

Just as the prize he claims to have wanted for so long is within his grasp, Brown blows it with demonstration of every reason why he is not fit to be Prime Minister.

Something inside Brown pressed his subconscious self destruct button.

Some subconscious element of Brown's, reportedly, flawed psyche - an over censorious super ego, the legacy of his disciplinarian, Presbyterian father? - seemed to be telling Brown that no way could he ever be Prime Minister. And all the while Brown's subconscious child was screaming,

Anon 6.09pm is right.Milliband would be mad to stand now. He would almost certainly lose to Cameron and he would be stuck with ten years minimum in the worst job in politics - Leader of the Opposition.Far better to allow the Bogeyman to take the hit at the next election.The problem is: Brown wouldn't be interested in a slow climb back to power. He'd bugger off sharpish to some fat job in the UN or Europe.What do you do then, Milly?

Perhaps Miliband may stand a chance if he, a)has a face transplant b)starts wearing a baseball cap a' la William Hague and, c)uses a voice modulator so as not to sound so patronising.On second thoughts perhaps it may be better to look again.

Anonymous 6:43pm said... Perhaps Miliband may stand a chance if he, a)has a face transplant b)starts wearing a baseball cap a' la William Hague and, c)uses a voice modulator so as not to sound so patronising.On second thoughts perhaps it may be better to look again.

You forgot to add:

d) A personality transplant, as Miliblob has no personality to speak of.

Some have said that all Milliband has to do is to wait until Labour lose the next election, takeover as leader and sit out 1 or 2 terms in opposition before becoming PM.

But there is more for him to consider.

If Labour, with Brown leading, sneaked the next election then Milliband’s dreams could be over. Such a win would take Labour through to about 2013. What then for Labour? What then for Milliband? This is almost the nightmare scenario for Milliband in terms of his leadership hopes.

Milliband also needs to think about the possibility of Labour winning the next election under his leadership. If he can see only a loss then he sits still. If he sees a win he stands and then he hopes like hell that the Conservatives lose faith in Cameron and turn much further to the right.

Anyone who believes that David Miliband is capable of being Prime Minister should read his extraordinary review, in the Observer, of Anthony Giddens’s Over To You, Mr Brown: How Labour Can Win Again. There, this alleged genius, who has never had a proper job and who was educated at one of those private schools which have the effrontery to send the bill to the taxpayer so that they can pretend to be normal London comprehensives, writes that he finally knew the Major Government to be doomed when he heard about the cones hotline.

Well, he is certainly very slow on the uptake, in that case. But more to the point, he explains that “the party of monetarism, privatisation and deregulation had become the party of motorway repairs.”

Most people assume Milly and his brother to have broken with their father’s Marxism. But in fact it could not be clearer that certainly Milly One, and no doubt Milly Two as well, despise boringly practical attempts by politicians to improve the lives of boringly ordinary people. Such are the grounds on which the sectarian Left, whence came neoconservatism in general and New Labour in particular, have always despised the Labour Movement. Milly is a textbook case.

Oh, and didn’t I read somewhere that they had banned the transatlantic trade in human beings as commodities…?

"Cabinet Ministers and Blair himself, are casting around for a credible opponent who can beat Brown" but since they can't find one they may settle for Milipede.

An interesting line on the John Prescott & Tracey show was Prescott allegedly saying that if the public insist on particularly young leaders we are bound to get this juvenile bickering (refering to Blair & Brown but more generally true).